Monday, 9 November 2015

I am an Atheist Blogger

I am an Atheist Blogger

In recent
months several atheist bloggers in the Muslim world—or people who weren’t
necessarily atheists, but questioned some precepts of Islam and Hinduism--have
been murdered, imprisoned and/or tortured.

(Raif Badawi, wikimedia commons)

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was imprisoned and
sentenced to 1000 lashes, of which 50 have already been carried out, for encouraging
debate about religion. His wife and children are immigrants to Canada but he is
not a Canadian citizen, limiting what Canada can do to help him.

Several Bangladeshi secularist or atheist bloggers
have also been killed.

(Avijit Roy, wikipedia)

Avijit Roy was stabbed to death in February 2015: Al-Qaida
in the Indian subcontinent claimed responsibility for attacking him. Roy was a
US citizen of Bangladeshi origin who had returned to his homeland for a visit.

Washiqur Rahman was hacked to death in March 2015 in
Dhaka, allegedly by two madrassa students.

Ananta Bijoy Das was murdered by four men with
machetes in May 2015. He was a banker and edited a journal that questioned some
religious precepts.

I think perhaps it’s time for atheists in the
Western world to proclaim themselves as such, in solidarity with these
vulnerable atheists and questioners of religious dogma. You don’t necessarily
have to be a blogger to do so: you can just make it public one way or another.

I am an atheist blogger but I have never felt the
need to announce that I am an atheist. But now I am doing so. I am and have
always been an atheist. I have never believed in God, in part because I was not
raised in any religion. My mother—the daughter of parents who rejected their
respective Christian denominations way back in the 1910s or 20s--called herself
an agnostic, meaning she didn’t know if there is a God or not.Recently a friend corrected me when I said I
was an atheist, saying I must be an agnostic because I can’t prove there is no God.It’s true I can’t prove it, but I am not
interested in doing so. I don’t believe in God, and that’s that. I am not what is known as a “militant
atheist:” it is fine with me if other people believe in God, but I don’t.

Yet even in North America there is still much hostility
to atheists. According to an excellent article on atheism in Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists
there is still marginal discrimination against atheists in the US, including,
for example, in child custody cases where the parents’ attendance, or
non-attendance, in church is sometimes taken as an indication of fitness to raise
a child. (Yes, I know it’s Wikipedia, but check out the extensive footnotes).I’ve read reports of
such cases in Canada too.

According to an article in Scientific American on January 17, 2012. by Daisy Grewal“In Atheists We Distrust “ (describing
research by Will Gervais and colleagues at the University of British Columbia) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-atheists-we-distrust/?print=true,only 45 per cent of Americans would vote for
an atheist to be President, and atheists are among the “least desirable”
potential sons or daughters-in-law. Atheists are also seen as much less
trustworthy than Muslims or Christians.

So being an atheist is something than can damage you
in other people’s eyes, if you don’t live in the rarified world of Western academia,
as I do.I have occasionally been
questioned by students or others about how I can have a system of moral beliefs
if I don’t believe in God.I’ve replied
that agnostics and atheists can still think about morality, care about other
people, and believe that compassion for others is better than disregard or
contempt. I am sure atheists are as likely to give to charities and to work for
the common good as any other social group.

When I mentioned I was thinking about writing this
blog, my husband asked me what difference it would make. I am a very privileged
person living in a liberal democracy where my atheism is nobody’s business but
my own.I know that Canada’s 1982 Charter
of Rights and Freedoms begin with the words “Whereas Canada is founded upon
principles that recognize the supremacy of God;” I consider this purely symbolic,
and not a threat to my rights in any way. But other atheists are
threatened.

(Gloria Steinem, wikimedia commons)

Back in the 1970s, when the second-wave women’s
movement was just getting started and the right of access to abortion was a
topic of much discussion, a group of 52 prominent women “came out” and announced
that they had had abortions. This provided some hope to less prominent women
who’d had or needed an abortion. (See the article by Jane Kramer, “Road
Warrior” about the American feminist leader Gloria Steinem in the New Yorker, October 19, 2015).

So I think that those of use who are atheists and
don’t have to worry about it should also come out.We should announce it, not just keep it quiet
or indeed consider it irrelevant to our everyday lives, as many if not most of
us do.If you are an atheist blogger,
perhaps now is the time—in solidarity with atheists, secularists, and critics of
religion in the Muslim world--to say so.

When thinking about agnostic vs atheist, I usually end up in the same place as Bertrand Russell:

"I never know whether I should say 'Agnostic' or whether I should say 'Atheist'. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line."

About Me

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights, holding a joint appointment in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2006 the Human Rights section of the American Political Science Association named Dr. Howard-Hassmann its first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights.Since arriving at Laurier in 2003 she has published Compassionate Canadians: Civic Leaders Discuss Human Rights (2003), Reparations to Africa (2008) and Can Globalization Promote Human Rights? (2010), and has also co-edited Economic Rights in Canada and the United States (2006) and The Age of Apology (2008). She established and maintains a website on political apologies, which can be visited at political-apologies.wlu.ca.